The clearest description I have managed so far about my blog is that it is not about cats. In general, I find predators pretty predictable while prey on the other-hand, because they live in universes of anxiety, develop more textured personalities. I also have as a writer a deft hand when it comes to making matters worse, so of course , the already panicky are ready made for me. I will try to grow this blog into an assortment of laughs, because that is what my life has mostly taught me to do. I will use the famous people I have known to get your attention and then tell you small but many times wonderful things about them. I will never name the ones I say ugly things about but I hope you will guess who they are.

Snobbishness was a Greater Offense than Prejudice

by Regis Boff

I grew up on one of the many hills surrounding the city of Pittsburgh. We were all bigots and racists. Every large ethnic or racial group that lived in Pittsburgh had a hill of its own. It was the result, I presume, of the national game of musical chairs we play with America’s homesteading immigrants. Timid masses huddle on the first space they can find, whispering to each other in their native language while praying for the English language to become decipherable to them in time.
Our pure little villages stood like bearded goats on these hilltops, each confident that their summit was closer to whatever they believed was above them. There are no hills for women even today because they distribute equally, and none set aside for gays and lesbians because they did not yet exist.
Class envy, of course, existed, but nobody had very much of that. We were all kind of lower class and fighting about so little would have just proven demoralizing. No, the best playing fields for prejudice lay in the fertile areas of skin color and accent.
It was a time when snobbishness was a greater offense than prejudice. Go figure. Nowadays conceit is confused with strength and bigotries are like little homicides.